Snowy Range Pass

Monday, August 14, 2017

Steamboat Arabia

Our last
stop before leaving Kansas City was the Steamboat Arabia museum.This is a fascinating story about the Hawley
family, who operates a Heating and AC business that became interested in
wrecked steamboats on the Missouri River. They started studying the history of
wrecked steamboats and how to find them.In total, they spent 20 years learning and searching for lost
vessels.The search was made more difficult
because over the decades the river changed its course many times both naturally
and thru the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation.

Finally,
they located a large vessel deep in the soil of a farm field miles from the
current river location.That wreck
turned out to be the Arabia lost on its maiden voyage carrying a large amount
of cargo and settlers up river.No one
lost their life in the wreck, but the ship and cargo was a total loss.

The
Hawley’s plan was to salvage the wreck and sell whatever contents they could to
offset their costs.The farmer agreed to
a small percentage to allow them to dig up his property.

It turned
into a massive project beyond their original expectations.What changed the whole scope of the project
was the discovery of over 200 tons of perfectly preserved cargo that was a time
capsule of life and goods of the time.In the end, they decided that the recovered materials could not be just
sold off for a profit, but needed to be persevered for history.

We were
fortunate enough to have one of the family members, who led the search and
recovery of the artifacts tell us their story.He ended by saying that it seems like today, that the AC business is
more a hobby and the museum and search for more vessels is their job.

Today, you
can learn all about the Arabia and cargo and the lives of people who were on
the edge of the American frontier at the time.In the end, it is also the story of the family and friends who devoted
so much of their time to finding and preserving this amazing history.